The real kicker is that even the slim chance of "unwanted mental health effects" could be reduced without removing the substance's pain and inflammation-relieving properties, if the US Gov't would simply allow the plant to be researched for pharmaceutical purposes.
Suspected "unwanted mental health effects" include full blow permanent schizophrenia. (Emphasis on suspected, for we know there's a lot of mental illness self-medication with psychoactive drugs starting with alcohol.) That strikes me as making it very hard to do ethical research of the sort you're positing.
If you think regular usage of cannabis increases the general prevalence of schizophrenia sharply enough that it would prohibit further medical research, I don't really know what to tell you. I just don't see it.
You by definition start with a postulate that there is an "unwanted mental health effect" you want to reduce. We'll assume for the moment it isn't permanent schizophrenia. To see if you've reduced it, you need a control group getting the "wild type", who will be at risk of getting permanent schizophrenia to the best of our current knowledge. If that risk is real, there's also a real chance the causative agent(s) will be administered to the control group.
BTW, two of the major active ingredients are already legal drugs or being tested in the US:
So your initial premise that the US government hasn't been allowing medical research is not quite the case. However, unlike recreational use, pharmaceutical use has a much higher tolerance of side effects, there's medical gain to be balanced against risks, or so you believe and keep testing at each stage of the drug trials.
That's a reasonable point, but marijuana use is already prevalent enough that you could probably recruit a statistically significant number of existing users with little difficulty and track the incidence of mental ill-health vs. a control population.
Per my other comment in this sub-thread, my concern there is that the experimental group will still be getting whatever it is that's bad, and in the context of "unwanted permanent mental health effects" of recreational use the experiment would be unethical.
On the other hand, with the recent state-wide decriminalizations we're "conducting" a rather while uncontrolled experiment right now that ought to be able to yield better data on the biggest concerns, although that sort of epidemiological research is really, really hard, and few are unbiased.
Echoing flockonus' comment, to replace the "drink everyday" thing, unless you're a woman of age 68 or older, if my vague memory of the recent closer look at the data is correct.
I may not be doing the article justice, but it seems a bit misleading how this is presented. The title reads almost like "science clickbait" and there's a lot of talk about "safe" and "lower risk" but the study seems to only have actually computed lethal dose. This is an almost entirely useless statistic from my perspective, and by presenting it as justification for any sort of "safeness" seems almost deceptive. They do nod to this with a small section on the other impacts of use, but it seems heavily deemphisized when compared with the core message.
Here's hoping I'm just reading this wrong and looking for the worst possible interpretation; I just worry that when presented without an even hand that these sorts of statements will only impede the goal of more reasonable drug policy and culture.
Wether you're right or not, I've noticed that a common clickbait title strategy is to make sure that the title is technically correct. In this case, a higher ld50 would mean weed is "safer" in the sense that it's harder to overdose. But it's already nearly impossible to OD on weed so that doesn't really mean much, and it certainly isn't what the title implies. This way, when you read it and the article is different than the title it almost feels like your fault for interpreting the title in the wrong manner instead of theirs for push an article about something few people care about.
Don't see what is surprising in this article. I don't know anyone who claims you can easily consume enough marijuana to kill yourself. On the other hand, alcohol poisoning resulting in death is a well-known phenomenon.
When people discuss the "dangers of marijuana", they aren't saying you will take a lethal dose. More typically, there are either claims of impacts on the brain, or claims that it is a gateway to potentially lethal drugs like cocaine or heroin.
>When people discuss the "dangers of marijuana", they aren't saying you will take a lethal dose. More typically, there are either claims of impacts on the brain, or claims that it is a gateway to potentially lethal drugs like cocaine or heroin.
It's long past time for those people to support their speculation.
I can't help but feel that statistic they're using is a little disingenuous. Yes cannabis has a ridiculously high lethal dose, more than you could ever smoke or consume. You'd basically have to create a concentrate and inject it directly or something.
I don't think you should be saying that cannabis is 114 times less deadly than alcohol. There are other contributing factors that could cause harm. There seems to be no research into carcinogenic qualities of cannabis smoke for example. I'm an avid user of cannabis but I dont think we need to go around pretending like there are no side effects and its completely harmless.
> There seems to be no research into carcinogenic qualities of cannabis smoke for example.
We know that cannabis smoke contains a bunch of the same carcinogens as tobacco smoke. But tobacco smokers smoke a lot more than cannabis smokers; and you don't have to smoke cannabis.
Do we really know that? I mean, it stands to reason that combustion produces carcinogens, but cannabis is not tobacco. I think this is one of the basic assertions that must be validated by quantitative analysis.
> Dale Gieringer, PhD, State Coordinator of the California National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML), stated in his 2004 article "Cannabis Vaporizer Combines Efficient Delivery of THC with Effective Suppression of Pyrolytic Compounds," published in the Journal of Cannabis Therapeutics, where he compared the chemical constituents of marijuana smoke (from a glass pipe) with marijuana vapor (from a vaporizer machine):
[...]
> Comparison runs using combusted [burned] cannabis presented a strikingly different picture... Review data from the gaseous headspace detected 111 tentatively identified compounds, including THC and CBN. Included were five known PAHs [polynuclear aromatic hydrocarbons]. Cannabinoids represented only 12% of the inferred recovered mass; the remaining 88% consisted of extraneous products of combustion."
And that is followed by a different study:
> Donald P. Tashkin, MD, Director of the Pulmonary Function Laboratories at the University of California, Los Angeles, stated in his article "Effects of Marijuana on the Lung and its Immune Defenses," published in the Mar. 1997 "Secretary's Youth Substance Abuse Prevention Initiative: Resource Papers" by the Center for Substance Abuse Prevention:
> With regard to the carcinogenic potential of marijuana, it is noteworthy that the tar phase of marijuana smoke contains many of the same carcinogenic compounds contained in tobacco smoke, including polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, such as benz[a]pyrene, which was recently identified as a key factor promoting human lung cancer... Preliminary findings suggest that marijuana smoke activates cytochrome P4501A1, the enzyme that converts polycyclic hydrocarbons, such as benz[a]pyrene, into active carcinogens."
> You make it sound like noone has analyzed cannabis smoke.
That's your interpretation, but it's not my assertion.
I've long wondered where the measurable health impact of marijuana smokers is. At the rates Americans consume it, shouldn't we be able to measure it the way we measure effects of tobacco and alcohol? Or is that more opportunity lost to prohibition?
Cannabis is thought to have an anti-carcinogenic effect, which is neat, but you'd still be at risk for emphysema and other kinds of lung diseases just from the physical impact of the smoke. Edible cannabis seems a lot safer in that respect but of course it's harder to gauge the dose, it's longer-lasting due to the different metabolic pathway, and it doesn't have the instant gratification of smoking. On the up side you won't have to worry about toting an oxygen cylinder around.
I was going to include that but I don't really know whether or not it's safer - inhaling cleaner but hotter vapor also strikes me as potentially problematic.
It is safer. When you vaporize, you (hopefully) only vaporize the molecules that you want. The machine should be set at a temperature that is low enough to vaporize only the THC and CBD. No carbon, no icky tar, no lighter fluid. It is even better if you can vaporize an extract.
You begin with the plant, extract the molecules that you want, and then vaporize said extract. Filter this vaporization through water since the molecules that you want aren't water soluble. This also cools down the vapours.
It is a lot safer than blindly setting a plant on fire.
The downside is that you will pay a premium in order to get quality medicinal extracts and you will need to invest money ($500+) in order to get a decent vaporizer.
Source: I am no expert, but I have family members that use cannabis as a legal medication.
> The report says that the constituents of cannabis smoke are similar to those of tobacco smoke apart from the presence of THC (which is only in cannabis) or nicotine (which is only in tobacco). This means that cannabis smoke has the same carcinogens (substances that cause cancer) as tobacco smoke, although concentrations of these may be up to 50% higher. Like tobacco, cannabis also contains toxic carbon monoxide.
> It also points out that although people generally smoke cannabis less often than tobacco cigarettes, the way they inhale means the amount of smoke reaching the lungs is greater. The respiratory tract and the rest of the body may also retain far more of the products of cannabis smoke than when smoking a similar quantity of tobacco. Given the similarities in their constituents, there is concern that regularly smoking cannabis could have similar health risks as regular tobacco smoking, says the BLF.
> Also, people often mix cannabis with tobacco. There is strong evidence that smoking tobacco causes lung cancer and chronic lung disease. This makes it difficult to isolate whether health problems are specifically caused by cannabis or tobacco, says the report.
Illegality doesn't help, but there are jurisdictions where marijuana is legal. In fact there are plenty of studies, but the answers are so disparate that the original study authors reasonably chose not to factor them in: depending on whose studies you believe, a couple of joints a day could be a bit more likely to induce lung cancer than a few cigarettes, pose a negligible risk or even mildly reduce the risk if you're already smoking the tobacco.
A bigger (although not entirely unrelated) problem than legal status is that controlling for appropriate variables is an absolute minefield when studying usage of something as heavily correlated with certain demographics, behaviours and attitudes as cannabis.
Out of the zillions and zillions of weed smokers over the past 100 years, there has never once been a reported case of someone dying due to carcinogenic responses to the smoke. Granted, there has never been a formal study, but there have been adjacent studies and by all intents and purposes it appears to be safe.
Today we have have vastly stronger, concentrated wax/oil that can be up to 99+% THC enabling much faster and bigger consumption. Weed consumption and delivery will continue to be refined, a fatal dose is "impossible" only until it is not.
Consuming anything with a sort of deadly, self-destructive intent can lead to death, one way or another. But I'm sorry, if you're going for an LD50 experience with weed, you're not going to get there --ever. Its just not possible unless you've created a medical experiment designed to kill the subject, and to get to that place I'm quite certain additional drugs would be required.
Innovators and inventors are being empowered by new and changing laws. Someone will invent something more potent than vaporizers until it too is replaced by something more potent. The only reason it hasn't already happened to weed is laws inhibited serious efforts and it came in a naturally consumable form that was good enough.
Not to sound like an ass (seriously, excuse me), but you apparently are not familiar with the effects of marijuana on the body and do not understand what you're talking about. You cannot get to that place, period. One super high dose of hash oil would knock you completely out, and we all know the story of that poor soul who ate the dense weed brownie unknowingly. You cannot just keep consuming THC in a recreational way that would kill you directly.
We still work directly or in the case of wax just one short step from actual flowers cut fairly fresh from a plant. This is not as good as weed can be, it's just a starting state that was artificially enforced by laws.
Technology and science enhances everything by default. The exceptions are rare, and weed will not be one.
It's not the method, it's the toxicity of the chemical itself. As others have mentioned, regardless of the method of extraction, purification, or intake, this does not change the ridiculous amount that would have to be pumped into the blood in order to kill someone.
Cannabinoids do not affect the brain stem, the primitive part of the brain that controls respiration and the heart. Many other drug overdoses are affected through this avenue. Cannabis does not and cannot.
You would have to adulterate it with another drug, in which case, it is a different discussion.
This isn't a discussion about how far "pure weed" can get you, it's about what's going to happen now that the laws don't deter people from applying technology and science to weed, and whether a 'fatal dose' is just a limitation of the literally stone-age techniques we currently use to consume stone-age quantities of weed in its basic plant form.
A "lethal" dosage of THC would require a blood transfusion - literally replacing your blood with THC until you asphyxiated. I've heard the LD50 (the lethal dosage that would kill 50% of the population) of cannabis described as "50 pounds dropped on your head from 50 feet."
That is true with today's weed and today's consumption technology. But that is also very shortsighted.
We know that technology, along with research, have proven very beneficial for devising better drugs, better ways to consume drugs, and better ways to produce drugs.
We know that already the concept of rolling up dead flowers to smoke has been superseded by vaporizers delivering 5 - 10 times more potency without all the smoke.
We know that weed has been excluded from even basic studies, leaving much to be explored and much to learn. Alongside the studies that have not been done lies innovations and technological and scientific enhancements that have not been invented yet.
There is no reason to assume we can only ever consume very tiny volumes of weed with fire, like our ancestors 700 generations ago.
I think labelling me as "very short-sighted" because we might one day, in the future, hypothetically reach THC intake levels that are considered lethal is a bit much. We aren't there yet, and even with the technologies you mentioned, we aren't even close. You would need to ingest a third your bodyweight (conservatively) all at once to kill yourself[1].
Physiologically, you would lose motor function long before you were able to kill yourself. So maybe in 2056 if somebody produces a machine that lets you take in 50kg of THC in a single hit, don't use it.
The thing is though that with something like opium, making heroin is more potent but provides an even better feeling.
With THC, you'll be more likely to reach a threshold of total discomfort and/or unconsciousness before you reach the fatal dose.
It's self correcting like Mushrooms. You can take an insane amount, but there is a good chance you'll be transported to the center of hell for several hours and never ever want to go back.
The problem here is that the age that you'd most likely use drugs is the age where you probably shouldn't. That said, of course the currenly policy is madness, but when I speak to "drug culture" people they seem 100% unaware of the risks and often tell me pot is a magical healing herb that can fix just about everything and, of course, is completely safe to drive on.
The activists have painted this false picture of it being this ultra-safe magic drug and I think its time we started building a rational view of it, as well as discussing with people what it means to be high and drive a car, and building out breathalyzer-like devices for police enforcement. It should be treated the same as a DUI.
That's what I am wondering. I believe that Marijuana is safer in terms of unconditional risk of death. But suppose, I am a responsible adult choosing to consume a recreational dose of either alcohol, meth or marijuana, not planning on driving or doing anything irresponsible while under influence. Does the same still apply? For example, there has been research into negative effects of marijuana on cognition. I do support legalisation, but just wondering how applicable this research is to most people
It's legal here in WA and we haven't had a problem with it being "unsafe". These articles kind of remind me about articles on coffee/wine. One day they're bad for the heart, the next day they boost heart health. I think these types of articles are why we have those anti-vaccine people.
As a programmer I'm very protective of my higher level brain functions. Marijuana's effects on short term memory are especially concerning to me. Do any of you long term smokers feels like it has affected your programming skills for the worse or better?
As a Marijuana addict, It has negatively affected mine, although that may be due to the underlying pschological problems that cause me to be an addict.
I find that with infrequent use, it is a legitimate psychedelic which can be very intense. It can however give one deep insights into your topic of study under the effects.
With frequent use the character of the drug changes, and it becomes almost a normal state, where I am, probably, slightly less functional than normal.
If I were abusing almost any other drug as much, I'd be looking at far greater cognitive damage, IMO.
There is no doubt at all that is affects short term memory when you are using it. The long term affects of cannabis use is difficult to study and there is the whole problem that the median scientific paper is wrong.
Neutral in my experience - I find sleep deprivation is far, far, far more damaging to my ability to think clearly.
If I code while stoned, I find I take longer, but come up with ideas I may not have otherwise considered - and I take way more notes and actually document my code, due to the whole memory thing - which is only while you're stoned, rather than permanent.
I mean, if you inject most of the LD50 of THC into your blood stream every few hours from infancy to adulthood, you're going to have some significant neurological problems - just like the lab rats used in the study I think you're referencing.
Everyone's mileage varies - you'll find no shortage of people who lament the long term effects (although abstinence for even a month or so seems to cause complete reversal).
For my part, smoking cannabis is great for me, especially for programming. I find both that I feel more focused and that I am more capable of juggling multiple tasks. The "listener" in me comes alive, and I'm better able to empathize with the author who, three years ago, wrote the class from which I'm inheriting for a slightly different use case.
Sometimes I spend the morning under coffee's spell, writing really great tests, to then get as high as I want and spend the afternoon making them pass, with the aesthetic sensibilities from some high-quality indica powering me through ensuring that my code is readable, reusable, and maintainable. Even if I get a little too high, I always know that the tests I wrote will keep me tethered to a more grounded demeanor.
However, the effect of the herb that I most treasure is that just a little bit of weed tells me what I so often forget: that I need to get up and go for a walk to get some real thinking done.
Sometimes the reefer also tells me other things about my habits: I've had too much coffee. I was too hard on a colleague or friend earlier. I need to stop fussing and just merge that pull request.
After smoking fairly consistently for 13 years, I seem to be blessed by having no negative effects of which I am aware. I think it's just a great plant and part of a healthy, whole-food-and-drugs lifestyle.
What exactly are you implying is wrong with the quoted segment?
Further, are you basing an opinion of a human's mental acuity on a single comment posted on a news forum? Do you think that is a valid measure of the long term effects of marijuana use?
I'm sorry - did you just change the predicate of your comment from "Except, apparently, your prose skill" to "Well, that's the problem with cognitive faults, we usually aren't aware of them" after we had responded to it?
Mine stands as originally posted - its tough, if not impossible, to make your own self-assessment on cognitive issues. That's why double-blind studies are the norm in biology and medicine.
I have stoner friends who make the same argument and, frankly, they're completely unaware at how slow they are from a cognitive perspective and seem overly forgetful. I can't just pin this on aging as we're all the same age. It just seems that those who took drugs seriously, even just pot, in their 20s, are paying a price for it much later in life. That's something people should be warned about. No amount of diet changes, meditation, or fish oil is going to get help here. They have permanently altered their brain.
I don't mean to sound cocky, but I can't think of a better way to say: I don't think my capacity to contribute effectively, drawing from cognitive capacity among other sources, is in question.
One of the most brilliant programmers I know is a regular smoker and he has an amazing short-term memory. Though now I have to wonder what his memory would be like if he didn't smoke?
Same here, I know someone very smart and prolific and I've sat next to him and watched him code page after page smoking bowl after bowl for almost a year. That's what makes me think it's all about the person and nothing to do with the substance.
I've solved more tough, intractable programming problems after a hit of weed than I'd like to admit. IMO its a wonder drug for getting you out of patterns of thinking.
And no, zero detrimental effects on my mind (at least thus far). In fact, I would say that it has made me at least 5-10% smarter in the sense that indica marijuana (the strain is key) was the first thing I discovered that allowed me to get a solid 8 hours of rest every night. It has had a remarkable cascading effect throughout my life, leading to much (much) greater clarity, attentiveness and focus during the day.
A lot of the science that says it drops your IQ seems to have been poorly done. Smokers are dumber in general, but that may well say more about their socioeconomic backgrounds. However, I personally wouldn't risk it. Do you know what I would pay to raise my IQ by a half-dozen points? I seriously considered taking Ritalin at one point, to see if it might give me a boost (actually I still haven't ruled it out, just shelved the idea.) I wouldn't dare use a substance that had the potential to lower my IQ, or reduce my ambition/motivation.
I mean, it's not going to permanently lower your IQ, or reduce your ambition, correct? And if it does, what's the benefit you get in return? Does lowering your ambition make you happier, for instance?
Why did you shelve ritalin? Does it have risks as well?
Do you know why you prefer not to risk iq/ambition but you're potentially okay with risking whatever ritalin can be a detriment to?
I ask all this as a curious non-user of anything but a daily multi-vitamin, forced by a loved one...
Just because much of the science has flaws does not mean that the effect is temporary, we don't really know what the long term effects might be. But even assuming it had no bad long term effects on the brain, if one were a regular user then it would regularly drop your intelligence and motivation, which itself is a disadvantage. This is no different than drinking regularly.
I may be more keenly aware of this than people in the US, but life is a global competition for resources, and it's unwise to squander your competitive edge.
Ritalin probably has more risks, I've not decided that it's worth the tradeoff yet.
I guess the core of your question is a deeper one about life, happiness, and the tradeoffs we make. I think the answer to that is different for everyone. Life is short and without intrinsic meaning. You have to focus on what gives it value for you, which is likely very different from the next person. For me, I enjoy creating things, and I feel most alive when in the zone churning out code. Most other people probably enjoy activities that are more social.
While I agree that the headline is click-baity, and the stats are a bit suspect, I still want to see headlines like these in the mainstream press, because it raises questions about why MJ is classified as a Schedule-I drug after all?
I'm not a smoker (maybe once or twice a year, at most?). But the blatant lying by the government (that MJ has no medicinal value and is more dangerous than meth), which flies in the face of science, _and_ the governments prohibition on research, really bothers me. Are we a theocracy? Shouldn't we let science inform our decisions??
Edit: gah! I meant Schedule-I, not Schedule-III ! Edited.
You're correct, schedule I is "high potential for abuse, no accepted medical use and unsafe to use even under medical supervision".
Schedule III would be "less potential for abuse than I and II, accepted medical use, abuse may lead to high psychological dependence or low to moderate physical dependence"
(Schedule II is for high abuse potential and severe physical or psychological dependence drugs which nonetheless have accepted medical use e.g. cocaine, amphetamines, morphine).
A problematic side effect of I is that being allowed to study them is extremely difficult, so getting enough data to move a drug from schedule I to schedule II is near-impossible.
> I think even the most vocal marijuana opponents would agree schedule 1 classification is insane.
The most vocal marijuana opponents frequently publicly proclaim (perhaps with different wording) all three elements of Schedule I classification, so I doubt that.
> Stricter control than cocaine?
I would expect that the only disagreement many of those vocal marijuana opponents would have with that is that Cocaine should also be Schedule I, not that marijuana should not be schedule I.
True. I wasn't necessarily trying to imply that anybody does. It was more to illustrate that we live in one of those countries now. In most of the US, you could get thrown into jail but it's fine as long as you're where all the politicians are.
> but it's fine as long as you're where all the politicians are.
Though, to be fair: the DC MJ laws were changed by the voters of DC, despite threats from Republicans to repeal that law. The Congress did not vote itself a puff-puff-pass law.
Also: you cannot toke up in the federal areas of DC (a large chunk of DC is under the feds, including national parks and monuments), despite what the DC law says.
Unless you mean local DC politicians, that doesn't make sense. The Congressmen/women are the ones who are trying to keep it illegal in DC. Pot legalization in DC has nothing to do with it being where "the politicians" are.
A discussion of the history of drug legislation and its intended target (Chinese immigrants in SF, for instance) would lend more weight to your comment.
We don't really let science inform our policy decisions. They are driven by other motives, most frequently business lobbying. Not a Theocracy, more of an Oligarchy.
Decided to feed the rage centres of my brain and read the most replied to comments in the article.
Apparently every joint smoked causes four pregnancies. By this math, everyone please, give me a pat on the back, I've repopulated a small city. I suppose my lowered testosterone and enhanced aggression have made me super-virile, and I'm causing parthenogenesis all over without trying.
Thing is, I don't know how you can even begin to argue against that level of stupid. Scientific fact and rational discourse don't work.
You may as well try to convince a lamp post of the validity of deontological ethics.
That does make for some interesting math. For instance, there's about four million children born each year, so that gives us an upper bound of about a million joints consumed. The penal system seems to regard about thirty grams as the unit of scale, so the total mass would be 30 Mg. According to their own website, the DEA seems to seize about an average of 400 Mg of marijuana a year.
So we now have a lower bound on production (400 Mg) and an upper bound on consumption (30 Mg). Clearly, production has greatly exceeded demand, in violation of basic micro-economics. Thus, the statement there are four children born for every joint smoked is one of the greatest refutations of capitalism you can imagine. Everyone who believes it should be issued a free Che Guevara t-shirt to show their disdain for free market enterprise. Similarly, anyone who supports the war on drugs should preferentially hire jobs candidates wearing Che Guevara t-shirts in order to avoid hiring those pot heads.
I have to actively avoid comment sections on most of the internet. HN is my safe-haven, although I still try to avoid politic-centric discussions here.
It's appalling the level of discourse of the average person, even in my normal friend/family circles (my facebook feeds).
I've never been a user, but I do support legalisation.
The reason I support it even though I myself wouldn't benefit is:
- It is at least as safe as tobacco and alcohol. So even if we leave the question of what is safer on the table, I think most people would agree based on available evidence that it isn't LESS safe than those two, and they're legal.
- The "war on drugs" has been a disaster. It has actually hurt economic growth, you have too many people in jail for trivial things, you leave a black mark on their file almost indefinitely making them unable to get a [good] job, you isolate them from society, you further push people into criminality, and the benefits of it are not clear if you ignore moralist arguments.
- We gain tax money from it being legal AND drug users aren't funding pretty horrifying criminality in countries like Mexico and Columbia.
- It has been shown to help with certain medical conditions (e.g. chronic pain, PTSD, etc). And while much more research needs to be conducted, it might be easier after legalisation as the permits needed are much easier to get.
However I will say my support for legalisation dropped quite a lot after reading how lightly "weed" users take smoking and driving. A lot of them seem to do it now and don't consider it a big deal, which I take a pretty dim view of. Unfortunately there isn't a very reliable test to see if someone is under the influence of anything other than alcohol.
People who drive under the influence of any mind altering substance (be it alcohol or weed) should have their driving privileges taken away or for repeat offenders they should literally go to jail for a period. It endangers their lives and the lives of other people on or near the road.
I agree. People are far too blasé about drinking and driving in the US. It also seems like the punishment is often fairly light for the first few offenses (e.g. a small ticket, no penalty points, or similar).
People from the US I've spoken to often claim this is because in some areas not having a car is pretty unworkable due to a lack of public transport or alternatives. So if driving was revoked then people could get "stranded" at home (e.g. the nearer store is a 10 minute drive away on roads with no sidewalk).
I think if they're unwilling to revoke people's driving, then waste a bunch of their time. People car much more about their time than their money, just force people to take a full day weekend class even on the first offense and make it three weeks worth or more on the second attempt (you can fine them also).
I think car-centric town and transport planning actually has a hell of a lot to answer for. Most drink driving accidents in the UK are rural. Not so many in human-scale/public transport provisioned cities - and the UK has a much bigger drinking problem than the U.S.
Also, in the US, buses equate to poverty in the minds of many, and that attitude is going to be hard to shift, so... roll on driverless cars?
I don't think punishment will put people off to any great degree. I mean - how many people do you know who have not once lamented the shit they got up to while drink? Rather the problem with impaired judgment...
If you get a DUI, even for the first time, you're going to spend at least a night in jail and rack up several thousand dollars in fines and attorney fees. I don't think first time DUI's are a felony in most of the U.S., but you're going to get points on your license and it's going to cost you long-term with insurance as well. The penalties aren't damning, but I'm not sure I'd call them "light" either. Many states also having shaming laws in place where you have to get a different colored license plate on your car if you've gotten a DUI.
You're right in that in that for most of the US, not having a vehicle is crippling. Many first-time DUI offenders have their licenses suspended but are allowed work privileges to avoid them losing their job.
Also, in my state, first-time offenders are often sentenced to either spend three days in jail or take a weekend class, so at least in Ohio, they're doing exactly what you're mentioning.
The only serious issue I see with making DUI laws somewhat more strict is knowing whether or not you're too impaired to drive. Groups like Mothers Against Drunk Driving have successfully lobbied to effectively force States to reduce the blood/alcohol threshold that's often used to distinguish impairment. I really have no idea how many drinks I can have within a given time frame and still know I'm legally not considered drunk. I've heard enough instances where people test right at, or slightly below, the threshold and get arrested and they say they felt their driving wasn't impaired at all. So I am left with no choice other than to arrange other transportation, or drink what I feel is a limited enough to make me not impaired.
> e.g. a small ticket, no penalty points, or similar
This might not be the case in other states, but in California and (I believe) Nevada, even first-time offenses are at least a night in jail and significant penalty points. License revocation is also not unheard of. Classes are pretty common.
Source: former California Highway Patrol employee. I processed a lot of arrest reports for drunk drivers.
We're just bad drivers in general, regardless of our level of intoxication. Texting. Dancing (I see this frequently). The number of elderly people who drive who shouldn't be is mind boggling.
I'm of a mind that its actually way too easy to obtain a drivers license in this country. For example; my mother took my uncle to get his drivers license renewed. Why she did is beyond me because he has early stage dementia. He couldn't understand the written test so the lady at the DMV just had my mom fill it out for him! Not even our own government cares whether we're qualified to drive!
> The number of elderly people who drive who shouldn't be is mind boggling.
Is this supported by any research? Road traffic accident statistics show too many young people. So, older people might be safer drivers.
Of course, there are a few people with dementia or visual impairment who shouldn't be driving but it's interesting that it's ok to suggest that older people are risky drivers when that doesn't appear to be true.
Older drivers (85+) are generally extremely risky per mile. "On the per-mile basis, the death rate of target drivers aged 85 and older is nearly triple that of
drivers aged 16 to 17"
They drive fewer miles, but even still their far more risky than teenagers.
"The per-driver death rate of target drivers aged 85 and older is nearly double that of target
drivers aged 16 to 17 (Rate Ratio [RR] 1.93, 95% Confidence Interval [CI] 1.66–2.24) and is
over six times that of drivers aged 50 to 59 (RR 6.25, CI 5.48–7.14)."
Also of note, new drivers of any age are generally more risky than experienced ones of that same age. So, a large chunk of the teenage hit would happen even if you banned people <20 from driving.
I'm not sure about your takeaway from that link. In the Summary:
"For example, the results of this study suggest that if a randomly-selected driver in his or thirties and a randomly-selected driver aged 85 or older were to drive equal numbers of miles, the older driver would be over 1500% more likely than the younger driver to be responsible for and die as a result of a crash, and about 220% more likely than the younger driver to kill an occupant of another vehicle or a non-motorist.
However, drivers in their thirties drive approximately 217% more miles on average than drivers aged 85 and older do. Without statistical adjustment for what occurs naturally, a randomly-selected driver aged 85 or older is about 720% more likely than a randomly selected driver aged 30 to 39 to die in a crash, but only about 0.8% more likely to kill an occupant of another vehicle or a non-motorist, over the course of a year."
I haven't gone back to review what the author means exactly by "statistical adjustment for what occurs naturally"
These statistics get very tricky as older people are more likely to die in an identical crash causing identical trauma. Older drivers drive at different times of day, have different passenger profiles, and drive different cars.
However, in the end 85+ year old drivers are simply less safe than 16 year old drivers. The issue is quantifying how much less safe they are.
I guess I am confused then about the statement that "[Seniors 85+ are] only about 0.8% more likely to kill an occupant of another vehicle or a non-motorist, over the course of a year." Through some sort of statistical interpretation.
I was in the vehicle with a new 30 something driver when they made a large input to the wrong pedal and put the vehicle through a wall.
Ford F-150 had some minor damage to the bumper, the brick wall had major damage for the width of the vehicle (I think any modern pickup would fair similarly).
Old people are more accident prone than middle-aged drivers, and the numbers back that up. However, young drivers are just as likely to be involved in a fatal accident as old drivers.
I would question the claim that Americans are bad drivers in general. Compared to driving I've seen in other countries (particularly India, China), even the worst drivers I've seen in America aren't so bad. And the worst drivers in America I know personally are not actually Americans but internationals.
Maybe we are generally worse compared to other western countries but my experience suggests the prevalence of driving in America puts our skills among the best. If someone has data which suggests otherwise please share.
True, this certainly skews my impression of driving in other countries. However, some of the examples I recall can not possibly be good driving in any culture (like making a ten point U-turn when there is ample room to make a single turn, or failing to park in a large spot after several attempts).
I'd definitely say American drivers, as a whole, are less prepared for and take too lightly the responsibility of driving a car. It is far too easy to get a license in this country: My test consisted of me, at sixteen years old, going around a suburban block with very little traffic at about 35 miles an hour, followed by a brief parallel parking test (a test I consider far less relevant than, say, being able to merge on a busy freeway at high speed). To qualify for this test, I only had to purchase an online driving course and fill out forms claiming that my parents had been me with me while I drove - none of which required time with a trained instructor.
Contrast this with China - one of the countries that you listed as an example of having bad drivers - where to obtain a license you need to pay the equivalent of a few thousand USD for a rigorous driving course in an isolated area (you can't even drive on the road before you have your license; learner's licenses do not permit you to drive on public roads). After this, you are still under some limitations until a year after you've obtained the license.
In addition to this, the more aggressive driving culture of China involves many more vehicles jostling for smaller spaces than would be the case in America. The skill and spatial awareness of the vehicle necessary to cope with this sort of environment is far greater than that needed to deal with even the most demanding driving environments of America.
We are definitely more laid-back and polite in driving than China (and I would prefer that any day) but more skillful? I highly doubt that.
The skill and spatial awareness of the vehicle necessary to cope with this sort of environment is far greater than that needed to deal with even the most demanding driving environments of America.
One day, I lucked out and found street parking near the convention center in Houston. I had to drive forwards then back into the unmarked space, which was obscured from view by the angle. I make sure to leave a good three feet of space from the car behind, and observe that there's space behind that car too. A few hours later, we come back to the car, and there's a woman in the car behind on the phone complaining about being "parked in."
(What's more, if you cranked up the stereotype dial when you imagine the scene, you'd be pretty accurate. No pickup truck, though. It was one of those Chrysler 300 style cars.) [heavy sigh]
EDIT: Contrast the above with what I observed in Sligo, Ireland, taking the bus to see some archaeological site. At this one bus stop on those twisty little roads, the mother and her child getting off the bus had to back up and flatten against the wall while the driver maneuvered out of this one bend in the road. If the driver had been wrong by a foot and a half -- and mind you, this is a full sized city bus -- he would've crushed them against the wall. Apparently, this was a regular occurrence!
I think that it is not that Americans are worse drivers, but bad drivers have more chances of having a car in America. In other places you have more alternatives, and bad drivers usually prefer these other alternatives. In the US, you must drive if you want to move.
Saying whether one country's drivers are better or worse is baseless and pointless. But the rules and customs of driving do tend to be more strict in some of the countries you mentioned.
i.e. in China, if you're 60 years or older, you need to pass yearly medical exam to show that you're fit to drive.
The legal limit in most of the US (0.08 BAC) is actually pretty high, so you can legally drink and drive. For example at that level a 220lb man can have four (American 1.5oz) shots and hit the road immediately at ~0.7. So most drinking and driving you might have seen probably isn't (at least legally).
The second main reason is probably because there is no good mass transit. Most other countries either have the local pub you can walk to or some subway you can take - there's no 20min drive to meet somewhere.
Can you get hit with a DUI without a blood test result in the U.S.?
Breathalysers pretty much only give largely inaccurate results when you still have alcohol residue in your throat or mouth. If you rinse out or wait a moment, they'll probably fall in line with blood tests.
"Consider the 2000 federal law that pressured states to lower their BAC standards to 0.08 from 0.10. At the time, the average BAC in alcohol-related fatal accidents was 0.17, and two-thirds of such accidents involved drivers with BACs of 0.14 or higher."
Why? Ratios mean nothing out-of-context. So, you look at Table 8 and tell me what are the chances of having an accident at BAC 0.00 in hard numbers. Because if the chance of an accident is infinitesimal, then I'm not worried so much about infinitesimal-times-four.
True, it would be better if it weren't set with BAC 0 = 1, but this is certainly more meaningful than share of accidents. Neither of the stats we used provide probability of an accident. Mine are relative probability for one behavior v. the other; yours are confounded by the unreported number of people engaging in each behavior.
Here's my real point. I believe, and I'm not alone, that the 0.08 limit is unnecessarily and arbitrarily low, and has more to do with neo-temperance hysteria than sound judgment.
There is a central divide in alcohol use and an individual's response to it. Barring young people inexperienced with alcohol (and lacking a fully developed frontal lobe), most people drink a bit, feel tipsy, and then decide that they need to sober up. They're self-aware, responsible, and careful. That's their response to alcohol.
But another segment of people have a completely different response to alcohol. They have a couple of drinks, feel a sense of euphoria, and want to drink and drink and drink some more. These people are alcoholics. They may be very high-functioning — able to hold down a job and all — but they respond both physically and psychologically in a fundamentally different way.
The first group might get behind the wheel, if they judge that they feel alright, and drive home as carefully as they can. The second group — now drunk — will get behind the wheel and drive recklessly, exceeding the speed limit, blasting the radio, taking turns too fast and so forth. The first group might be at BAC 0.05 or 0.08, or even at 0.10, but taking all due precautions. It's not ideal, but it's a far cry from the second group, now at 0.15 or 0.2 or 0.3 (which takes some practice as you know, since unpracticed drunks would be passed out at this BAC), who are now whipping down the road. The first group occasionally has "too much to drink." The second group is blasted every Friday and Saturday night, and sometimes every happy hour.
It's this second group that is causing the lion's share of the tragedies we see on the roadways. The shame of it is that our whole culture has to suffer because of this. A person who is no real threat to his fellows and who may very well be guilty of no other infraction at the time can have his life ruined by over-zealous prosecution.
I think we would do well to reconsider the problem and what we're tying to solve, rather than simply getting MAD(D) about such things and patting ourselves on the back for making things "tougher," year after year.
The groups aren't as dichotomized as you describe. I would consider myself part of the first group except that I do drink for the euphoria. I occasionally drink, period (rare social occasions), but when I do I'll want at least 6+, and I'll be sure to have a place to rest or a ride home. I even have a breathalyzer. Your definition of an alcoholic is off.
For clarification I wasn't saying that it's 'too high', but just that it allows for more drinks than people think.
If the parent commenter was a European who doesn't drive that much and was surprised about how Americans drink and drive, they're usually not aware of how many drinks effect BAC and what the laws are.
I'm American, and I think it's neither. It's more that in almost all of the country, the alternatives to drinking and driving work so badly that it's a better option, even with the risks. I think we're positively pathological about it in a way - we're all about punishment and stricter penalties, but nobody cares about making the alternatives suck less.
I drink pretty frequently, and I go to a lot of effort to never drive drunk. I don't think I've ever met a designated driver in person, but I've met a lot of people who talk about how they drink and drive home drunk anyways. Public transit is mostly nonexistent and unreliable, and most of what there is doesn't run at night. Taxi service is also either nonexistent or may take the better part of an hour outside of major city centers. Walking is also a practical impossibility outside of major city centers. Meanwhile, there are so many people driving a little drunk that you're probably safe enough as long as you aren't the one obviously swerving all over the road.
If we actually care about the issue, why don't we make better alternatives instead of creating a situation where it's painful to not drive drunk, and then act all outraged when people do it.
As an American, I don't drive drunk, and I don't find it painful. Drink somewhere close to home, call a cab. If I can get drunk at a bar, which will costs me $50+, I can certainly afford a $5-10 cab ride.
That said, I've heard that in Japan, it's the bar's responsibility to get you home safely. They take it very seriously, but you pay extra at the club to account for it.
I've never lived anywhere without cab service. I'm currently in a town with 35k residents and we have a few cab companies, though we do have a big tourist draw.
That said, I hadn't considered that possibility. In that case I'd be making plans to be picked up, or I'd be staying in.
One of the interesting thing about moving from the US to Ireland was that it went from being acceptable to have a couple of beers and then drive, to people maybe having one mid-strength Guinness, if that (some reasonable exception for parties where you were hanging out for several hours). I find I prefer it here. Also, it's worth noting the limit for your first two years of having a licence is 0.02%, and they require 12 hours of behind the wheel training (when I got my Californian licence there was no requirement, as I was 18).
Ireland has some of the more dangerous roads in Europe, and yet it's still about half as dangerous as the US, depending on your preferred metric.
"People who drive under the influence of any mind altering substance (be it alcohol or weed)"
How bout coffee, energy drinks, cold medicine, most prescribed prescription medicines have some blurb about possible mental effects, tea, kava, nodoz caffeine pills, numerous herbal products ... We only complain about certain psychoactive drugs, and not others. Theres no logic behind it aside from residual cultural Puritanism, so looking for non cavalier logical behavior is likely to be fruitless.
Also it varies by state, and there are quite effective tests for THC, and we've got megatons of state laws on the books WRT inattentive and distracted and negligent driving that cover it quite well. Finally we have endless nuisance laws such that all of us are always criminals all the time that can be selectively enforce by cops on pot smokers, much as "driving while black" has been criminalized in certain areas.
Like yourself, I don't smoke (gives me an awful headache) but given the total net effect of prohibition, my kids are more likely to be killed as innocent bystanders in a shootout than killed by a stoned driver, so I'd prefer the lower risk. On the assumption that use patterns would change significantly with legalization (I'm still not going to smoke, my grannie still isn't going to smoke, its based on the "logic" that if abortion is legal nobody would ever have children, ever, which is pretty laughable). This logic is often seen in hyper-authoritarian areas. I live in a free area where cops won't drag me out of my house and shoot me if I paint polka dots on my house, of course nobody acts like that, but people who live in hyper authoritarian areas always under some HOA jackboots assume all humans would uncontrollably paint their houses purple polkadots unless the stormtroopers keep order under violent force.
There is definitely logic behind it: anything that impairs one's driving can result in a DUI. Commercially available egogenics (caffeine) do not impair one's driving under typical doses.
Most of the studies I've seen on caffeine and driving have only focused on drivers who were already sleep deprived. Are there any that focus on it's effects on otherwise well-rested subjects?
>We gain tax money from it being legal AND drug users aren't funding pretty horrifying criminality in countries like Mexico and Columbia.
As a note, I remember an article somewhere about how it was meth the drug that gave more profit to drug mafias. So it'd still be a problem.
The question is, bigger or smaller? I'm pretty sure there's data of the translation from marijuana users->hard drugs users.
> I'm pretty sure there's data of the translation from marijuana users->hard drugs users.
Even assuming that data is good, its an open question how much of that is causal, how much if it is "people who would use hard drugs anyway tend to stop by marijuana on the way because its more accessible", and how much of it is "people who develop relationships with illegal drug dealers through marijuana are likely to be pushed by them to other drugs at some point".
The first is exacerbated by legalization, the second indifferent to it, and the third mitigated by it, so simple correlation data doesn't really provide useful information for policy without some clear indication of why the correlation exists.
I'm pretty sure there's data of the translation from marijuana users->hard drugs users.
It's super hard to control for endogeneity of those variables though, which would cast significant doubt on a causal interpretation of what's going on. The fact that marijuana is currently illegal means that there is an associative bias for dealers - they have access to/hang out with harder drugs/more dangerous dealers.
"There have been numerous studies in which the effects of marijuana have been assesed on performance in driving simulators and even a few studies conducted in city traffic. Much to everyone's surprise, the results of many of these studies revealed only relatively small impairments in driving skills, even after quite large doses of the drug. Several of the early studies showed no impairment at all, but as driving simulators grew more sophisticated and the tasks became more complex and demanding, impairments were observed, for example in peripheral vision and lane control. Marijuana users, however seem to be aware that their driving skills may be impaired and they tend to compensate by driving more slowly, keeping some distance from the vehicle ahead and in general take fewer risks (Smiley, 1986). This is in marked contrast to the effects of alcohol, which produces clear impairments in many aspects of driving skill as assesed in driving simulators. Alcohol also tends to encourage people to take greater risks and drive more aggresively" (Iversen, 2008, p.95)
Now personally I do not think it is at all a good idea to drive when stoned, but I do not consider it anywhere near as dangerous as driving when drunk.
Same goes for a lot of other drugs. I'd rather get in a car with someone driving on LSD than on alcohol. They might think the other cars are penguins, but their reaction time if the penguins get too close is still going to be reasonable.
People who drive under the influence of any mind altering substance (be it alcohol or weed) should have their driving privileges taken away
Caffine and most painkillers fall into this definition. I'd rather just replace the ignition system with a short driving game that you have to complete to start the car.
Or replace the need for an active driver at all. Seems like we're already flirting with this scenario with the lane-assist, adaptive cruise control etc.
The question then becomes, if an active/traditional "driver" is not needed, can the occupants be intoxicated?
I'd rather just replace the ignition system with a short driving game that you have to complete to start the car
I've heard there are cars with a breath analyzer connected to the ignition. A driving game would hopefully pick up more than alcohol, so I like that idea. Unfortunately, I suspect many drunk drivers will just do what they do with the current systems and have their sober girlfriend pass the test for them.
Even that's not enough, though; the girlfriend might just lean over from the passenger seat. This is based on third hand information I've heard, not on anybody I actually know.
There is no breath analyzer for pot, or for other drugs, and the only tests available give results that aren't directly related to impairment. ie: A habitual user who isn't impaired can test the same as a casual user who is.
There's an extremely extremely rough utilitarian analysis that says that the largest positive effect in QALYs added comes from fewer road traffic deaths due to people substituting away from driving while drunk to driving while stoned. See section IV of http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/01/05/marijuana-much-more-tha...
Empirically, driving under the influence of marijuana makes one safer by dialing back their willingness to take risk. Empirically, I'd rather be a passenger to stoner a than someone past their 60s, in their teens or recently emigrated from a non driving country. More research needs to be done before we can make any conclusions but research to date hasn't shown it to be a problem [0]. I actually dread legalization because it's only a matter of time before some legislator decides to "crack down" on the menace that is stoned drivers.
Totally ancedotal - I have a friend who who gives me a lift and I feel more comfortable as a passenger when they are stoned. Their attention span is low.
Revoking the license of everyone who drives while impaired seems unworkable given its prevalence and the necessity of driving in the States:
1. Since so many people do it and will continue to do it, you essentially create a lottery situation; just as now, very few are caught, whereas the vast majority will evade punishment, and they know it, therefore the problem persists.
2. People who have their licenses revoked still have to get places, therefore they continue to drive and accept the fact of additional penalties.
In summary, creating harsh penalties for everyday behavior creates new problems while solving no existing ones.
The research about Marijuana's impact on driving is inconclusive, but there are indications that it might have no negative impact (for the most recent example: https://s3.amazonaws.com/s3.documentcloud.org/documents/1667...) and even that it might reduce risks of crashes.
As a result, it's unfortunate that it's apparently socially acceptable to assume without question that marijuana has a negative impact on driving. New research could still demonstrate that it does not, just as new research has been strongly suggesting that our other assumptions are likely flawed. If marijuana is found to not be dangerous for drivers, then it will very unfortunate that we've promoted yet another misconception about it due to unchecked assumptions.
No. Just, no. Speaking from my own experience, and that of my friends, marijuana can make you a shittier driver. I very much doubt the current scientific consensus is that marijuana in general makes you a better driver. It is possible that there are some strains with a certain cannabinoid ratio that has a minimal impact (like low in THC), but there are other strains that have a major impact.
You are responding to a post with a link to research by countering with
anecdotal evidence. The parent also never said that "the current scientific consensus is that marijuana in general makes you a better driver". That's a total distortion of the comment was saying.
I, for one, think we should be open to actually studying the topic instead of baselessly and unscientifically concluding that driving under the influence of marijuana is equally as dangerous as driving under the influence of alcohol.
I couldn't disagree more strongly with the claim that it's "unfortunate" for people to assume, in the absence of strong evidence to the contrary, that drugs associated with impaired cognitive function probably don't mix with activity as potentially lethal as driving.
Especially since the balance of the evidence you've linked to appears to support that assumption.
It's not as if "there is at least some level of marijuana use incompatible with driving" is exactly an extraordinary claim; the burden of proof for establishing parameters for a "safe" level of high whilst in control of a vehicle really ought to sit with proponents of smoking and driving.
Put another way, jumping to the conclusion that driving under the influence of marijuana isn't safe isn't likely to kill people if it's incorrect.
That position depends on the assumption that criminalization is benign. However, it's entirely possible that criminalization harms more lives and creates a greater strain on society than the act itself, as has very likely been the case with the broader criminalization of marijuana.
Defaulting to the position of criminalization regardless of the evidence, particularly in this context given the history and impact of existing marijuana policy, will likely perpetuate the creation of flawed policy.
Obligatory cynicism: The point of the "War on Drugs" is to perpetuate the "War on Drugs." It's a jobs program, a funding program, and serves government's natural desire to grow and control. From this point of view the program has probably been pretty successful.
I would agree with you they shouldn't be doing it, but I would disagree that's it's anywhere near the equivalent to drinking and driving. People who drink and drive (assuming not to the point of being blackout drunk) tend to drive more aggressively. People who get high and drive, if nothing else, are a danger to others for driving too slow and being too cautious.
I don't think it's a good idea to drive around a 2,000+ lbs pile of metal while in any kind of altered state, but I'd take someone high over someone drunk or extremely tired any day of the week.
People drive under conditions that they shouldn't, I know kids that wont wear a seatbealt and never follow rules in general.
What I'm trying to say is that, same as with alcohol, people are still going to do it. Legalization won't change how people feel the effects of pot affect their driving.
> any mind altering substance (be it alcohol or weed) should have their driving privileges taken away
Such a blanket statement without any science backing is without merit. Even phrase "mind altering" is suspect as substances that increase mental focus, reaction time, and clarity all (probably) benefit driving ability.
Many substances are "mind altering". Nicotine, Caffeine, Endorphin (from exercise e.g.), even just sugar. Also, mental states; sleep-deprived, agitated, depressed.
Read this thread, plenty are posting exactly those sources. Yes, I exaggerate when I say most sober people, my point was that they're safer than many normal drivers like old people or teenagers or tired people or texters, etc. More to the point, it's not alcohol, so those wanting to treat it as such and calling it DUI need to show evidence that it impairs driving. You can't simply assume it does. Pot is not alcohol, it does not impair your decision making in that way.
The idea that people should be given DUI's for driving while having THC in their system is quite simply baseless idiocy from those who simply want to treat it like alcohol which it is not. People drive around daily on prescription drugs far more dangerous to their driving abilities than a little pot and you don't hear anyone up in arms about them. The demonetization of marijuana is simple idiocy from the uneducated fools who want to continue the failed drug war or who swallowed the propaganda without demanding evidence of the bogus claims continually made.
> Unfortunately there isn't a very reliable test to see if someone is under the influence of anything other than alcohol.
I heard a lot of noise almost a decade ago about impairment testing. The idea is not to test for a specific drug, or a specific amount of a drug, but rather to test the ability of the person to react to situations. There isn't a lot of material out there about it, but it was highly praised at the time (in the info I came across) because it gets closer to the question that we really want to be answered: does this person currently have the ability to safely perform the task at hand? It removes the stigma of particular substances from the equation and also gives you the ability to test someone who is "drug-free" but also stayed up all night and may not be as able a driver (or machinist, or nurse) as usual.
That was all a while ago, and I have yet to hear more or read any in-depth studies about the practice. Does anyone know if new research has been done?
It also would presumably discriminate against entire swaths of people (think old folks, potentially disabled drivers, etc).
Not that I think anyone incapable of driving should be, but any impairment test would flunk certain groups of 100% sober people working at their best ability (not sleep-drunk, either).
If they're unable to pass the impairment test they shouldn't be driving. If grandpa is too old to drive and can't maintain his lane in traffic anymore, a police officer giving him an impairment test and failing him is not discrimination.
I didn't mean to use discriminate in the PC sense of the word. Simply meant that those groups of people will fail.
I agree with your conclusion.
I think taking away the driving privilege of tons of old people is going to cause a stir, that's all. And more importantly, we don't have "old age checkpoints," and you don't go to jail if you're old and fail some kind of ability test while sober.
In Australia we have rolled out widespread "booze busses" which block off major roads and breathalize everyone who comes through. This + major advertising campaigns have had a significant impact on drunk driving.
I am surprised at the lack of these kinds of measures in the US - and how casually most people treat drink driving.
These booze busses have now extended to testing for marijuana and methamphetamine, though neither drug is likely to be legalized in Australia anytime soon.
You can see from this video that the cops are clearly violating rights, and someone who knows what their rights are can stand up for themselves, so to speak.
There's another one I can't find where someone hangs a note out the window and gets waved through.
I'm not saying it is or isn't, I'm saying it's argued that it is.
It's my personal belief that it's a rights violation to stop anyone without a reason if you intend to arrest them if they meet some criteria.
In particular, I believe it would be a major rights violation to force everyone to do a breathalyzer at a dui checkpoint. Fortunately, they're not that extreme yet--the have to smell alcohol or suspect impairment afaik.
I've been stopped in approximately 8 DUI checkpoints in my ~15 years of driving. I drive significantly less miles per year than the national average here in America, if that counts for anything.
I'm a foreigner so take this for what it's worth but my view is that if it provides significant public benefit (in reducing drink driving / dope driving accidents) that stops for the specific purpose of breath testing at DUI checkpoints then it should be something the community would support.
FWIW I chose not to say whether it's unconstitutional or not because it takes the supreme court to decide that. I'm entirely unqualified.
I lean the other way, and this being one of my favorite quotes probably makes me decidedly American:
"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." - Ben Franklin
That said, I do entirely disagree with drunk driving and I want it to end. I'm just not willing to further trade my personal freedoms to accomplish it.
The supreme court actually decided that it's not unconstitutional but leaves it to the states to handle enforcement.
Interesting to note that in Australia the percentage of fatal accidents involving alcohol are 12% versus 22% in California. Especially because we have a younger official drinking age of 18 and a generally higher alcohol consumption rate...
It's my estimate, as a non-user, that someone would drive much better under the influence of marijuana than alcohol, especially at the extremes.
It's also my estimate that many drivers at .08 BAC or under the influence of marijuana are far superior drivers than some other drivers who are 100% sober.
So why isn't the line drawn based on driving ability or driving performance rather than mental state?
I can see some obvious reasons: you can measure BAC and it's pretty hard to objectively measure driving ability. But the point stands--BAC is not a measure of actual driving ability, rather a measure of personal impairment.
Driving under the influence is dangerous because it affects your judgement and your reaction times - much like driving while tired. The danger is not as present in familiar, safe conditions, but when something unexpected happens that puts you in a potentially dangerous situation. If you are driving under the influence your decision-making is impaired and you are more likely to make the wrong decision and be involved in an accident. So perhaps there are some people who drive better under the influence than others who are sober, but that says nothing about their ability to react to dangerous situations.
> So why isn't the line drawn based on driving ability or driving performance rather than mental state?
Reckless/careless driving is a traffic violation that can result in loss of license.
I'm sure there's some segment of the population (A) that is so bad at reacting to dangerous situations that the people who are best at it (B) still outperform (A), despite (B) being under the influence.
You just shifted "driving" to "reacting to dangerous situations." The point holds.
Reckless / careless driving is a seldom-issued traffic violation, probably often in conjunction with DUI. It does not cover "the old man who can't pass a sobriety test when sober."
Because of my field of work, I am subject to drug testing and I like my job so I don't partake but it really doesn't matter to me if someone else wants to.
It doesn't make any sense to me to spend billions of dollars every year to try to stop people from obtaining and ingesting a plant.
Even if it were a deadly poison, it still wouldn't make sense to me.
For example, if drinking Hemlock infused tea were to became fashionable and people were dropping left, right and center from it, I would still think it's absurd to spend billions of dollars to stop consenting adults from doing so.
Since it makes no sense in that case, I have not heard a convincing argument for prohibition of a much less harmful (and often helpful) plant.
Let me help you out. Your hemlock hypothetical already exists. It's a Japanese fish called Fugu and the fatality rate from consumption thereof is 6.8%. I would never advocate for making Fugu illegal.
Well, the most-touted argument that I experience is, in a nutshell, that the danger of marijuana that people care about is the danger to others (driving impairment).
Nobody seems to care that alcohol is legal.
Honestly, though, I don't encounter any die-hard anti-marijuana people anymore. Most people don't care. I don't, either. My father says he doesn't, but says he'll vote against it anyway. Go figure.
I'm not sure if that's a particularly good graph; I can't get my brain to not think "Hey, look at how big cannabis is on that scale; it's obviously the most dangerous!". I can't even find where in that article it's specified what those numbers actually mean. The only thing I have is an assertion by the graph that a higher number equals lower risk, which seems backwards; a lower number equaling a lower risk would be less nonsensical.
Cannabis has a ridiculously high LD50, everyone knows that. When I think "is cannabis safe" I'm not wondering if I'm one day going to smoke so much weed that I keel over dead, I'm wondering if habitual marijuana use would lower my IQ/damage my lungs/etc.
Vaporizing is healthier than smoking, or consuming it orally. It won't reduce your IQ, that's never been proven. The effects of cannabis are varied. Memory is affected, the degree to which it is affected can vary greatly and depends on the dosage, your tolerance and context. This is while on the drug.
Once your are sober, your memory functions pretty normally and isn't affected much by occasional use.
Look, I'm all for legalization and all that, but the study measures the ratio between toxic dose and typical intake. We knew this already, I thought. This isn't the be all end all because you can get harmful effects without reaching toxic levels. You can get lung cancer from smoking. You can have psychiatric issues arise etc. etc.
This is a very narrow study which shows a promising result but it's not saying "marijuana is completely safe now".
The graph chosen here, the ratio of a toxic does to a typical dose, is a poor proxy for actual risk. For instance, cocaine has a relatively high risk of causing heart problems at "non-toxic" doses. GHB has a low ratio of deadly to recreational (though not so low that it's unmanageable,) yet is one of the safest recreational drugs.
This is similar to the British health leader's announcement that MDMA was safer than alcohol, entirely based on how much likely someone was to die, as opposed to other potential negative effects like neurotoxicity.
I'm a support of full drug legalization, and agree that most drugs are far less harmful when taken properly than alcohol. It would be great to see less obtuse statistical analysis of risk.
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[ 2.8 ms ] story [ 242 ms ] threadYou by definition start with a postulate that there is an "unwanted mental health effect" you want to reduce. We'll assume for the moment it isn't permanent schizophrenia. To see if you've reduced it, you need a control group getting the "wild type", who will be at risk of getting permanent schizophrenia to the best of our current knowledge. If that risk is real, there's also a real chance the causative agent(s) will be administered to the control group.
BTW, two of the major active ingredients are already legal drugs or being tested in the US:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetrahydrocannabinol#Marinol (Schedule III!)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nabilone
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nabiximols (in US Phase III drug trials)
So your initial premise that the US government hasn't been allowing medical research is not quite the case. However, unlike recreational use, pharmaceutical use has a much higher tolerance of side effects, there's medical gain to be balanced against risks, or so you believe and keep testing at each stage of the drug trials.
On the other hand, with the recent state-wide decriminalizations we're "conducting" a rather while uncontrolled experiment right now that ought to be able to yield better data on the biggest concerns, although that sort of epidemiological research is really, really hard, and few are unbiased.
Here's hoping I'm just reading this wrong and looking for the worst possible interpretation; I just worry that when presented without an even hand that these sorts of statements will only impede the goal of more reasonable drug policy and culture.
When people discuss the "dangers of marijuana", they aren't saying you will take a lethal dose. More typically, there are either claims of impacts on the brain, or claims that it is a gateway to potentially lethal drugs like cocaine or heroin.
It's long past time for those people to support their speculation.
I don't think you should be saying that cannabis is 114 times less deadly than alcohol. There are other contributing factors that could cause harm. There seems to be no research into carcinogenic qualities of cannabis smoke for example. I'm an avid user of cannabis but I dont think we need to go around pretending like there are no side effects and its completely harmless.
We know that cannabis smoke contains a bunch of the same carcinogens as tobacco smoke. But tobacco smokers smoke a lot more than cannabis smokers; and you don't have to smoke cannabis.
http://medicalmarijuana.procon.org/view.answers.php?question...
The interesting one is:
> Dale Gieringer, PhD, State Coordinator of the California National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML), stated in his 2004 article "Cannabis Vaporizer Combines Efficient Delivery of THC with Effective Suppression of Pyrolytic Compounds," published in the Journal of Cannabis Therapeutics, where he compared the chemical constituents of marijuana smoke (from a glass pipe) with marijuana vapor (from a vaporizer machine):
[...]
> Comparison runs using combusted [burned] cannabis presented a strikingly different picture... Review data from the gaseous headspace detected 111 tentatively identified compounds, including THC and CBN. Included were five known PAHs [polynuclear aromatic hydrocarbons]. Cannabinoids represented only 12% of the inferred recovered mass; the remaining 88% consisted of extraneous products of combustion."
And that is followed by a different study:
> Donald P. Tashkin, MD, Director of the Pulmonary Function Laboratories at the University of California, Los Angeles, stated in his article "Effects of Marijuana on the Lung and its Immune Defenses," published in the Mar. 1997 "Secretary's Youth Substance Abuse Prevention Initiative: Resource Papers" by the Center for Substance Abuse Prevention:
> With regard to the carcinogenic potential of marijuana, it is noteworthy that the tar phase of marijuana smoke contains many of the same carcinogenic compounds contained in tobacco smoke, including polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, such as benz[a]pyrene, which was recently identified as a key factor promoting human lung cancer... Preliminary findings suggest that marijuana smoke activates cytochrome P4501A1, the enzyme that converts polycyclic hydrocarbons, such as benz[a]pyrene, into active carcinogens."
That's your interpretation, but it's not my assertion.
I've long wondered where the measurable health impact of marijuana smokers is. At the rates Americans consume it, shouldn't we be able to measure it the way we measure effects of tobacco and alcohol? Or is that more opportunity lost to prohibition?
I think the answer to "do we know that?" was "yes, we know that."
You begin with the plant, extract the molecules that you want, and then vaporize said extract. Filter this vaporization through water since the molecules that you want aren't water soluble. This also cools down the vapours.
It is a lot safer than blindly setting a plant on fire.
The downside is that you will pay a premium in order to get quality medicinal extracts and you will need to invest money ($500+) in order to get a decent vaporizer.
Source: I am no expert, but I have family members that use cannabis as a legal medication.
http://medicalmarijuana.procon.org/view.answers.php?question...
Erowid has a nice chart. See benzene. https://www.erowid.org/plants/cannabis/cannabis_info3.shtml
The british pro-drug site has a summary of some research: http://www.ukcia.org/research/smoke-contents.php
This UK National health service "behind the headlines" report looks at one study and how it was reported. http://www.nhs.uk/news/2012/06june/Pages/cannabis-lung-healt...
> The report says that the constituents of cannabis smoke are similar to those of tobacco smoke apart from the presence of THC (which is only in cannabis) or nicotine (which is only in tobacco). This means that cannabis smoke has the same carcinogens (substances that cause cancer) as tobacco smoke, although concentrations of these may be up to 50% higher. Like tobacco, cannabis also contains toxic carbon monoxide.
> It also points out that although people generally smoke cannabis less often than tobacco cigarettes, the way they inhale means the amount of smoke reaching the lungs is greater. The respiratory tract and the rest of the body may also retain far more of the products of cannabis smoke than when smoking a similar quantity of tobacco. Given the similarities in their constituents, there is concern that regularly smoking cannabis could have similar health risks as regular tobacco smoking, says the BLF.
> Also, people often mix cannabis with tobacco. There is strong evidence that smoking tobacco causes lung cancer and chronic lung disease. This makes it difficult to isolate whether health problems are specifically caused by cannabis or tobacco, says the report.
Isn't part of the problem the fact that marijuana is scheduled as a drug so dangerous that it's incredibly difficult to do that research?
A bigger (although not entirely unrelated) problem than legal status is that controlling for appropriate variables is an absolute minefield when studying usage of something as heavily correlated with certain demographics, behaviours and attitudes as cannabis.
Google around: https://www.google.com/search?q=marijuana+lung+cancer
He simply pointed out that it's an anecdote.
Another fruitful Google search: https://www.google.com/search?q=ld50+marijuana
Technology and science enhances everything by default. The exceptions are rare, and weed will not be one.
It's not the method, it's the toxicity of the chemical itself. As others have mentioned, regardless of the method of extraction, purification, or intake, this does not change the ridiculous amount that would have to be pumped into the blood in order to kill someone.
Cannabinoids do not affect the brain stem, the primitive part of the brain that controls respiration and the heart. Many other drug overdoses are affected through this avenue. Cannabis does not and cannot.
You would have to adulterate it with another drug, in which case, it is a different discussion.
This isn't a discussion about how far "pure weed" can get you, it's about what's going to happen now that the laws don't deter people from applying technology and science to weed, and whether a 'fatal dose' is just a limitation of the literally stone-age techniques we currently use to consume stone-age quantities of weed in its basic plant form.
We know that technology, along with research, have proven very beneficial for devising better drugs, better ways to consume drugs, and better ways to produce drugs.
We know that already the concept of rolling up dead flowers to smoke has been superseded by vaporizers delivering 5 - 10 times more potency without all the smoke.
We know that weed has been excluded from even basic studies, leaving much to be explored and much to learn. Alongside the studies that have not been done lies innovations and technological and scientific enhancements that have not been invented yet.
There is no reason to assume we can only ever consume very tiny volumes of weed with fire, like our ancestors 700 generations ago.
Physiologically, you would lose motor function long before you were able to kill yourself. So maybe in 2056 if somebody produces a machine that lets you take in 50kg of THC in a single hit, don't use it.
[1]: http://druglibrary.org/schaffer/library/mj_overdose.htm
With THC, you'll be more likely to reach a threshold of total discomfort and/or unconsciousness before you reach the fatal dose.
It's self correcting like Mushrooms. You can take an insane amount, but there is a good chance you'll be transported to the center of hell for several hours and never ever want to go back.
http://www.futurity.org/teen-marijuana-abuse/
memory issues as well:
http://www.northwestern.edu/newscenter/stories/2013/12/marij...
The problem here is that the age that you'd most likely use drugs is the age where you probably shouldn't. That said, of course the currenly policy is madness, but when I speak to "drug culture" people they seem 100% unaware of the risks and often tell me pot is a magical healing herb that can fix just about everything and, of course, is completely safe to drive on.
The activists have painted this false picture of it being this ultra-safe magic drug and I think its time we started building a rational view of it, as well as discussing with people what it means to be high and drive a car, and building out breathalyzer-like devices for police enforcement. It should be treated the same as a DUI.
That line immediately made me feel the same way - then I finished the article saw that the author did a good job at explaining the other risks.
I find that with infrequent use, it is a legitimate psychedelic which can be very intense. It can however give one deep insights into your topic of study under the effects.
With frequent use the character of the drug changes, and it becomes almost a normal state, where I am, probably, slightly less functional than normal.
If I were abusing almost any other drug as much, I'd be looking at far greater cognitive damage, IMO.
If I code while stoned, I find I take longer, but come up with ideas I may not have otherwise considered - and I take way more notes and actually document my code, due to the whole memory thing - which is only while you're stoned, rather than permanent.
I mean, if you inject most of the LD50 of THC into your blood stream every few hours from infancy to adulthood, you're going to have some significant neurological problems - just like the lab rats used in the study I think you're referencing.
For my part, smoking cannabis is great for me, especially for programming. I find both that I feel more focused and that I am more capable of juggling multiple tasks. The "listener" in me comes alive, and I'm better able to empathize with the author who, three years ago, wrote the class from which I'm inheriting for a slightly different use case.
Sometimes I spend the morning under coffee's spell, writing really great tests, to then get as high as I want and spend the afternoon making them pass, with the aesthetic sensibilities from some high-quality indica powering me through ensuring that my code is readable, reusable, and maintainable. Even if I get a little too high, I always know that the tests I wrote will keep me tethered to a more grounded demeanor.
However, the effect of the herb that I most treasure is that just a little bit of weed tells me what I so often forget: that I need to get up and go for a walk to get some real thinking done.
Sometimes the reefer also tells me other things about my habits: I've had too much coffee. I was too hard on a colleague or friend earlier. I need to stop fussing and just merge that pull request.
After smoking fairly consistently for 13 years, I seem to be blessed by having no negative effects of which I am aware. I think it's just a great plant and part of a healthy, whole-food-and-drugs lifestyle.
Your prose suggests otherwise.
Further, are you basing an opinion of a human's mental acuity on a single comment posted on a news forum? Do you think that is a valid measure of the long term effects of marijuana use?
Well, that's the problem with cognitive faults, we usually aren't aware of them.
Are you serious?
Mine stands as originally posted - its tough, if not impossible, to make your own self-assessment on cognitive issues. That's why double-blind studies are the norm in biology and medicine.
I have stoner friends who make the same argument and, frankly, they're completely unaware at how slow they are from a cognitive perspective and seem overly forgetful. I can't just pin this on aging as we're all the same age. It just seems that those who took drugs seriously, even just pot, in their 20s, are paying a price for it much later in life. That's something people should be warned about. No amount of diet changes, meditation, or fish oil is going to get help here. They have permanently altered their brain.
I don't mean to sound cocky, but I can't think of a better way to say: I don't think my capacity to contribute effectively, drawing from cognitive capacity among other sources, is in question.
And no, zero detrimental effects on my mind (at least thus far). In fact, I would say that it has made me at least 5-10% smarter in the sense that indica marijuana (the strain is key) was the first thing I discovered that allowed me to get a solid 8 hours of rest every night. It has had a remarkable cascading effect throughout my life, leading to much (much) greater clarity, attentiveness and focus during the day.
I mean, it's not going to permanently lower your IQ, or reduce your ambition, correct? And if it does, what's the benefit you get in return? Does lowering your ambition make you happier, for instance?
Why did you shelve ritalin? Does it have risks as well?
Do you know why you prefer not to risk iq/ambition but you're potentially okay with risking whatever ritalin can be a detriment to?
I ask all this as a curious non-user of anything but a daily multi-vitamin, forced by a loved one...
I may be more keenly aware of this than people in the US, but life is a global competition for resources, and it's unwise to squander your competitive edge.
Ritalin probably has more risks, I've not decided that it's worth the tradeoff yet.
I guess the core of your question is a deeper one about life, happiness, and the tradeoffs we make. I think the answer to that is different for everyone. Life is short and without intrinsic meaning. You have to focus on what gives it value for you, which is likely very different from the next person. For me, I enjoy creating things, and I feel most alive when in the zone churning out code. Most other people probably enjoy activities that are more social.
I'm not a smoker (maybe once or twice a year, at most?). But the blatant lying by the government (that MJ has no medicinal value and is more dangerous than meth), which flies in the face of science, _and_ the governments prohibition on research, really bothers me. Are we a theocracy? Shouldn't we let science inform our decisions??
Edit: gah! I meant Schedule-I, not Schedule-III ! Edited.
https://www.google.com/search?q=schedule+1+drugs&ie=utf-8&oe...
Schedule III would be "less potential for abuse than I and II, accepted medical use, abuse may lead to high psychological dependence or low to moderate physical dependence"
(Schedule II is for high abuse potential and severe physical or psychological dependence drugs which nonetheless have accepted medical use e.g. cocaine, amphetamines, morphine).
A problematic side effect of I is that being allowed to study them is extremely difficult, so getting enough data to move a drug from schedule I to schedule II is near-impossible.
I think even the most vocal marijuana opponents would agree schedule 1 classification is insane. Stricter control than cocaine? Really?
The most vocal marijuana opponents frequently publicly proclaim (perhaps with different wording) all three elements of Schedule I classification, so I doubt that.
> Stricter control than cocaine?
I would expect that the only disagreement many of those vocal marijuana opponents would have with that is that Cocaine should also be Schedule I, not that marijuana should not be schedule I.
Though, to be fair: the DC MJ laws were changed by the voters of DC, despite threats from Republicans to repeal that law. The Congress did not vote itself a puff-puff-pass law.
Also: you cannot toke up in the federal areas of DC (a large chunk of DC is under the feds, including national parks and monuments), despite what the DC law says.
1. http://heinonline.org/HOL/LandingPage?handle=hein.journals/c...
Apparently every joint smoked causes four pregnancies. By this math, everyone please, give me a pat on the back, I've repopulated a small city. I suppose my lowered testosterone and enhanced aggression have made me super-virile, and I'm causing parthenogenesis all over without trying.
Thing is, I don't know how you can even begin to argue against that level of stupid. Scientific fact and rational discourse don't work.
You may as well try to convince a lamp post of the validity of deontological ethics.
So we now have a lower bound on production (400 Mg) and an upper bound on consumption (30 Mg). Clearly, production has greatly exceeded demand, in violation of basic micro-economics. Thus, the statement there are four children born for every joint smoked is one of the greatest refutations of capitalism you can imagine. Everyone who believes it should be issued a free Che Guevara t-shirt to show their disdain for free market enterprise. Similarly, anyone who supports the war on drugs should preferentially hire jobs candidates wearing Che Guevara t-shirts in order to avoid hiring those pot heads.
It's appalling the level of discourse of the average person, even in my normal friend/family circles (my facebook feeds).
The reason I support it even though I myself wouldn't benefit is:
- It is at least as safe as tobacco and alcohol. So even if we leave the question of what is safer on the table, I think most people would agree based on available evidence that it isn't LESS safe than those two, and they're legal.
- The "war on drugs" has been a disaster. It has actually hurt economic growth, you have too many people in jail for trivial things, you leave a black mark on their file almost indefinitely making them unable to get a [good] job, you isolate them from society, you further push people into criminality, and the benefits of it are not clear if you ignore moralist arguments.
- We gain tax money from it being legal AND drug users aren't funding pretty horrifying criminality in countries like Mexico and Columbia.
- It has been shown to help with certain medical conditions (e.g. chronic pain, PTSD, etc). And while much more research needs to be conducted, it might be easier after legalisation as the permits needed are much easier to get.
However I will say my support for legalisation dropped quite a lot after reading how lightly "weed" users take smoking and driving. A lot of them seem to do it now and don't consider it a big deal, which I take a pretty dim view of. Unfortunately there isn't a very reliable test to see if someone is under the influence of anything other than alcohol.
People who drive under the influence of any mind altering substance (be it alcohol or weed) should have their driving privileges taken away or for repeat offenders they should literally go to jail for a period. It endangers their lives and the lives of other people on or near the road.
Don't think it's a stoner problem, more an inconsiderate dickhead/cultural problem.
People from the US I've spoken to often claim this is because in some areas not having a car is pretty unworkable due to a lack of public transport or alternatives. So if driving was revoked then people could get "stranded" at home (e.g. the nearer store is a 10 minute drive away on roads with no sidewalk).
I think if they're unwilling to revoke people's driving, then waste a bunch of their time. People car much more about their time than their money, just force people to take a full day weekend class even on the first offense and make it three weeks worth or more on the second attempt (you can fine them also).
Also, in the US, buses equate to poverty in the minds of many, and that attitude is going to be hard to shift, so... roll on driverless cars?
I don't think punishment will put people off to any great degree. I mean - how many people do you know who have not once lamented the shit they got up to while drink? Rather the problem with impaired judgment...
You're right in that in that for most of the US, not having a vehicle is crippling. Many first-time DUI offenders have their licenses suspended but are allowed work privileges to avoid them losing their job.
Also, in my state, first-time offenders are often sentenced to either spend three days in jail or take a weekend class, so at least in Ohio, they're doing exactly what you're mentioning.
The only serious issue I see with making DUI laws somewhat more strict is knowing whether or not you're too impaired to drive. Groups like Mothers Against Drunk Driving have successfully lobbied to effectively force States to reduce the blood/alcohol threshold that's often used to distinguish impairment. I really have no idea how many drinks I can have within a given time frame and still know I'm legally not considered drunk. I've heard enough instances where people test right at, or slightly below, the threshold and get arrested and they say they felt their driving wasn't impaired at all. So I am left with no choice other than to arrange other transportation, or drink what I feel is a limited enough to make me not impaired.
This might not be the case in other states, but in California and (I believe) Nevada, even first-time offenses are at least a night in jail and significant penalty points. License revocation is also not unheard of. Classes are pretty common.
Source: former California Highway Patrol employee. I processed a lot of arrest reports for drunk drivers.
I'm of a mind that its actually way too easy to obtain a drivers license in this country. For example; my mother took my uncle to get his drivers license renewed. Why she did is beyond me because he has early stage dementia. He couldn't understand the written test so the lady at the DMV just had my mom fill it out for him! Not even our own government cares whether we're qualified to drive!
Is this supported by any research? Road traffic accident statistics show too many young people. So, older people might be safer drivers.
Of course, there are a few people with dementia or visual impairment who shouldn't be driving but it's interesting that it's ok to suggest that older people are risky drivers when that doesn't appear to be true.
https://aaafoundation.org/sites/default/files/OlderDriverRis...
They drive fewer miles, but even still their far more risky than teenagers. "The per-driver death rate of target drivers aged 85 and older is nearly double that of target drivers aged 16 to 17 (Rate Ratio [RR] 1.93, 95% Confidence Interval [CI] 1.66–2.24) and is over six times that of drivers aged 50 to 59 (RR 6.25, CI 5.48–7.14)."
Also of note, new drivers of any age are generally more risky than experienced ones of that same age. So, a large chunk of the teenage hit would happen even if you banned people <20 from driving.
"For example, the results of this study suggest that if a randomly-selected driver in his or thirties and a randomly-selected driver aged 85 or older were to drive equal numbers of miles, the older driver would be over 1500% more likely than the younger driver to be responsible for and die as a result of a crash, and about 220% more likely than the younger driver to kill an occupant of another vehicle or a non-motorist.
However, drivers in their thirties drive approximately 217% more miles on average than drivers aged 85 and older do. Without statistical adjustment for what occurs naturally, a randomly-selected driver aged 85 or older is about 720% more likely than a randomly selected driver aged 30 to 39 to die in a crash, but only about 0.8% more likely to kill an occupant of another vehicle or a non-motorist, over the course of a year."
I haven't gone back to review what the author means exactly by "statistical adjustment for what occurs naturally"
However, in the end 85+ year old drivers are simply less safe than 16 year old drivers. The issue is quantifying how much less safe they are.
Ford F-150 had some minor damage to the bumper, the brick wall had major damage for the width of the vehicle (I think any modern pickup would fair similarly).
http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/magazine/2012/10/teenager...
>but it's interesting that it's ok to suggest that older people are risky drivers when that doesn't appear to be true.
Ageing impairs one's ability to drive. It's not controversial because our bodies break as we age. Everyone knows that.
Maybe we are generally worse compared to other western countries but my experience suggests the prevalence of driving in America puts our skills among the best. If someone has data which suggests otherwise please share.
Contrast this with China - one of the countries that you listed as an example of having bad drivers - where to obtain a license you need to pay the equivalent of a few thousand USD for a rigorous driving course in an isolated area (you can't even drive on the road before you have your license; learner's licenses do not permit you to drive on public roads). After this, you are still under some limitations until a year after you've obtained the license.
In addition to this, the more aggressive driving culture of China involves many more vehicles jostling for smaller spaces than would be the case in America. The skill and spatial awareness of the vehicle necessary to cope with this sort of environment is far greater than that needed to deal with even the most demanding driving environments of America.
We are definitely more laid-back and polite in driving than China (and I would prefer that any day) but more skillful? I highly doubt that.
One day, I lucked out and found street parking near the convention center in Houston. I had to drive forwards then back into the unmarked space, which was obscured from view by the angle. I make sure to leave a good three feet of space from the car behind, and observe that there's space behind that car too. A few hours later, we come back to the car, and there's a woman in the car behind on the phone complaining about being "parked in."
(What's more, if you cranked up the stereotype dial when you imagine the scene, you'd be pretty accurate. No pickup truck, though. It was one of those Chrysler 300 style cars.) [heavy sigh]
EDIT: Contrast the above with what I observed in Sligo, Ireland, taking the bus to see some archaeological site. At this one bus stop on those twisty little roads, the mother and her child getting off the bus had to back up and flatten against the wall while the driver maneuvered out of this one bend in the road. If the driver had been wrong by a foot and a half -- and mind you, this is a full sized city bus -- he would've crushed them against the wall. Apparently, this was a regular occurrence!
i.e. in China, if you're 60 years or older, you need to pass yearly medical exam to show that you're fit to drive.
The legal limit in most of the US (0.08 BAC) is actually pretty high, so you can legally drink and drive. For example at that level a 220lb man can have four (American 1.5oz) shots and hit the road immediately at ~0.7. So most drinking and driving you might have seen probably isn't (at least legally).
The second main reason is probably because there is no good mass transit. Most other countries either have the local pub you can walk to or some subway you can take - there's no 20min drive to meet somewhere.
If you were to test his blood. Breathalyzers work differently and this guy would not pass one.
Breathalysers pretty much only give largely inaccurate results when you still have alcohol residue in your throat or mouth. If you rinse out or wait a moment, they'll probably fall in line with blood tests.
Where I live, refusing either results in a guilty verdict.
"Consider the 2000 federal law that pressured states to lower their BAC standards to 0.08 from 0.10. At the time, the average BAC in alcohol-related fatal accidents was 0.17, and two-thirds of such accidents involved drivers with BACs of 0.14 or higher."
http://reason.com/archives/2010/10/11/abolish-drunk-driving-...
And at 0.08, you're chance of accident is 393% of that when sober. 0.07 is 322%.[1]
1. http://www.nhtsa.gov/staticfiles/nti/pdf/812117-Drug_and_Alc... (Table 8)
There is a central divide in alcohol use and an individual's response to it. Barring young people inexperienced with alcohol (and lacking a fully developed frontal lobe), most people drink a bit, feel tipsy, and then decide that they need to sober up. They're self-aware, responsible, and careful. That's their response to alcohol.
But another segment of people have a completely different response to alcohol. They have a couple of drinks, feel a sense of euphoria, and want to drink and drink and drink some more. These people are alcoholics. They may be very high-functioning — able to hold down a job and all — but they respond both physically and psychologically in a fundamentally different way.
The first group might get behind the wheel, if they judge that they feel alright, and drive home as carefully as they can. The second group — now drunk — will get behind the wheel and drive recklessly, exceeding the speed limit, blasting the radio, taking turns too fast and so forth. The first group might be at BAC 0.05 or 0.08, or even at 0.10, but taking all due precautions. It's not ideal, but it's a far cry from the second group, now at 0.15 or 0.2 or 0.3 (which takes some practice as you know, since unpracticed drunks would be passed out at this BAC), who are now whipping down the road. The first group occasionally has "too much to drink." The second group is blasted every Friday and Saturday night, and sometimes every happy hour.
It's this second group that is causing the lion's share of the tragedies we see on the roadways. The shame of it is that our whole culture has to suffer because of this. A person who is no real threat to his fellows and who may very well be guilty of no other infraction at the time can have his life ruined by over-zealous prosecution.
I think we would do well to reconsider the problem and what we're tying to solve, rather than simply getting MAD(D) about such things and patting ourselves on the back for making things "tougher," year after year.
If the parent commenter was a European who doesn't drive that much and was surprised about how Americans drink and drive, they're usually not aware of how many drinks effect BAC and what the laws are.
I drink pretty frequently, and I go to a lot of effort to never drive drunk. I don't think I've ever met a designated driver in person, but I've met a lot of people who talk about how they drink and drive home drunk anyways. Public transit is mostly nonexistent and unreliable, and most of what there is doesn't run at night. Taxi service is also either nonexistent or may take the better part of an hour outside of major city centers. Walking is also a practical impossibility outside of major city centers. Meanwhile, there are so many people driving a little drunk that you're probably safe enough as long as you aren't the one obviously swerving all over the road.
If we actually care about the issue, why don't we make better alternatives instead of creating a situation where it's painful to not drive drunk, and then act all outraged when people do it.
That said, I've heard that in Japan, it's the bar's responsibility to get you home safely. They take it very seriously, but you pay extra at the club to account for it.
That said, I hadn't considered that possibility. In that case I'd be making plans to be picked up, or I'd be staying in.
Ireland has some of the more dangerous roads in Europe, and yet it's still about half as dangerous as the US, depending on your preferred metric.
How bout coffee, energy drinks, cold medicine, most prescribed prescription medicines have some blurb about possible mental effects, tea, kava, nodoz caffeine pills, numerous herbal products ... We only complain about certain psychoactive drugs, and not others. Theres no logic behind it aside from residual cultural Puritanism, so looking for non cavalier logical behavior is likely to be fruitless.
Also it varies by state, and there are quite effective tests for THC, and we've got megatons of state laws on the books WRT inattentive and distracted and negligent driving that cover it quite well. Finally we have endless nuisance laws such that all of us are always criminals all the time that can be selectively enforce by cops on pot smokers, much as "driving while black" has been criminalized in certain areas.
Like yourself, I don't smoke (gives me an awful headache) but given the total net effect of prohibition, my kids are more likely to be killed as innocent bystanders in a shootout than killed by a stoned driver, so I'd prefer the lower risk. On the assumption that use patterns would change significantly with legalization (I'm still not going to smoke, my grannie still isn't going to smoke, its based on the "logic" that if abortion is legal nobody would ever have children, ever, which is pretty laughable). This logic is often seen in hyper-authoritarian areas. I live in a free area where cops won't drag me out of my house and shoot me if I paint polka dots on my house, of course nobody acts like that, but people who live in hyper authoritarian areas always under some HOA jackboots assume all humans would uncontrollably paint their houses purple polkadots unless the stormtroopers keep order under violent force.
As a note, I remember an article somewhere about how it was meth the drug that gave more profit to drug mafias. So it'd still be a problem. The question is, bigger or smaller? I'm pretty sure there's data of the translation from marijuana users->hard drugs users.
Even assuming that data is good, its an open question how much of that is causal, how much if it is "people who would use hard drugs anyway tend to stop by marijuana on the way because its more accessible", and how much of it is "people who develop relationships with illegal drug dealers through marijuana are likely to be pushed by them to other drugs at some point".
The first is exacerbated by legalization, the second indifferent to it, and the third mitigated by it, so simple correlation data doesn't really provide useful information for policy without some clear indication of why the correlation exists.
The data for oxygen is far more alarming.
100% of hard drug users users first started out on oxygen.
Furthermore, if nobody was allowed oxygen, all illegal drug addiction would stop.
Oxygen is the ultimate gateway drug.
It's super hard to control for endogeneity of those variables though, which would cast significant doubt on a causal interpretation of what's going on. The fact that marijuana is currently illegal means that there is an associative bias for dealers - they have access to/hang out with harder drugs/more dangerous dealers.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Science-Marijuana-Leslie-L-Iversen/d...
Now personally I do not think it is at all a good idea to drive when stoned, but I do not consider it anywhere near as dangerous as driving when drunk.
Same goes for a lot of other drugs. I'd rather get in a car with someone driving on LSD than on alcohol. They might think the other cars are penguins, but their reaction time if the penguins get too close is still going to be reasonable.
People who drive under the influence of any mind altering substance (be it alcohol or weed) should have their driving privileges taken away
Caffine and most painkillers fall into this definition. I'd rather just replace the ignition system with a short driving game that you have to complete to start the car.
The question then becomes, if an active/traditional "driver" is not needed, can the occupants be intoxicated?
I've heard there are cars with a breath analyzer connected to the ignition. A driving game would hopefully pick up more than alcohol, so I like that idea. Unfortunately, I suspect many drunk drivers will just do what they do with the current systems and have their sober girlfriend pass the test for them.
Good point. It needs some form of seat sensor that turns the engine back off if the person in the driving seat changes.
http://norml.org/library/item/marijuana-and-driving-a-review...
1. Since so many people do it and will continue to do it, you essentially create a lottery situation; just as now, very few are caught, whereas the vast majority will evade punishment, and they know it, therefore the problem persists.
2. People who have their licenses revoked still have to get places, therefore they continue to drive and accept the fact of additional penalties.
In summary, creating harsh penalties for everyday behavior creates new problems while solving no existing ones.
The research about Marijuana's impact on driving is inconclusive, but there are indications that it might have no negative impact (for the most recent example: https://s3.amazonaws.com/s3.documentcloud.org/documents/1667...) and even that it might reduce risks of crashes.
As a result, it's unfortunate that it's apparently socially acceptable to assume without question that marijuana has a negative impact on driving. New research could still demonstrate that it does not, just as new research has been strongly suggesting that our other assumptions are likely flawed. If marijuana is found to not be dangerous for drivers, then it will very unfortunate that we've promoted yet another misconception about it due to unchecked assumptions.
I, for one, think we should be open to actually studying the topic instead of baselessly and unscientifically concluding that driving under the influence of marijuana is equally as dangerous as driving under the influence of alcohol.
Especially since the balance of the evidence you've linked to appears to support that assumption.
It's not as if "there is at least some level of marijuana use incompatible with driving" is exactly an extraordinary claim; the burden of proof for establishing parameters for a "safe" level of high whilst in control of a vehicle really ought to sit with proponents of smoking and driving.
Put another way, jumping to the conclusion that driving under the influence of marijuana isn't safe isn't likely to kill people if it's incorrect.
Defaulting to the position of criminalization regardless of the evidence, particularly in this context given the history and impact of existing marijuana policy, will likely perpetuate the creation of flawed policy.
I don't think it's a good idea to drive around a 2,000+ lbs pile of metal while in any kind of altered state, but I'd take someone high over someone drunk or extremely tired any day of the week.
What I'm trying to say is that, same as with alcohol, people are still going to do it. Legalization won't change how people feel the effects of pot affect their driving.
Such a blanket statement without any science backing is without merit. Even phrase "mind altering" is suspect as substances that increase mental focus, reaction time, and clarity all (probably) benefit driving ability.
Many substances are "mind altering". Nicotine, Caffeine, Endorphin (from exercise e.g.), even just sugar. Also, mental states; sleep-deprived, agitated, depressed.
The idea that people should be given DUI's for driving while having THC in their system is quite simply baseless idiocy from those who simply want to treat it like alcohol which it is not. People drive around daily on prescription drugs far more dangerous to their driving abilities than a little pot and you don't hear anyone up in arms about them. The demonetization of marijuana is simple idiocy from the uneducated fools who want to continue the failed drug war or who swallowed the propaganda without demanding evidence of the bogus claims continually made.
I heard a lot of noise almost a decade ago about impairment testing. The idea is not to test for a specific drug, or a specific amount of a drug, but rather to test the ability of the person to react to situations. There isn't a lot of material out there about it, but it was highly praised at the time (in the info I came across) because it gets closer to the question that we really want to be answered: does this person currently have the ability to safely perform the task at hand? It removes the stigma of particular substances from the equation and also gives you the ability to test someone who is "drug-free" but also stayed up all night and may not be as able a driver (or machinist, or nurse) as usual.
That was all a while ago, and I have yet to hear more or read any in-depth studies about the practice. Does anyone know if new research has been done?
Not that I think anyone incapable of driving should be, but any impairment test would flunk certain groups of 100% sober people working at their best ability (not sleep-drunk, either).
I agree with your conclusion.
I think taking away the driving privilege of tons of old people is going to cause a stir, that's all. And more importantly, we don't have "old age checkpoints," and you don't go to jail if you're old and fail some kind of ability test while sober.
I am surprised at the lack of these kinds of measures in the US - and how casually most people treat drink driving.
These booze busses have now extended to testing for marijuana and methamphetamine, though neither drug is likely to be legalized in Australia anytime soon.
It's often argued they violate the constitution--that police are stopping every car for no reason.
Police get around that by calling it a "safety check."
There's plenty of videos about how to "beat" them: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kLmKl60VrWM
You can see from this video that the cops are clearly violating rights, and someone who knows what their rights are can stand up for themselves, so to speak.
There's another one I can't find where someone hangs a note out the window and gets waved through.
I've seen those videos too - are you saying it's unconstitutional to stop drivers to do a breathalyser?
It's my personal belief that it's a rights violation to stop anyone without a reason if you intend to arrest them if they meet some criteria.
In particular, I believe it would be a major rights violation to force everyone to do a breathalyzer at a dui checkpoint. Fortunately, they're not that extreme yet--the have to smell alcohol or suspect impairment afaik.
I've been stopped in approximately 8 DUI checkpoints in my ~15 years of driving. I drive significantly less miles per year than the national average here in America, if that counts for anything.
I'm a foreigner so take this for what it's worth but my view is that if it provides significant public benefit (in reducing drink driving / dope driving accidents) that stops for the specific purpose of breath testing at DUI checkpoints then it should be something the community would support.
How that plays out is another matter.
I lean the other way, and this being one of my favorite quotes probably makes me decidedly American:
"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." - Ben Franklin
That said, I do entirely disagree with drunk driving and I want it to end. I'm just not willing to further trade my personal freedoms to accomplish it.
The supreme court actually decided that it's not unconstitutional but leaves it to the states to handle enforcement.
Interesting to note that in Australia the percentage of fatal accidents involving alcohol are 12% versus 22% in California. Especially because we have a younger official drinking age of 18 and a generally higher alcohol consumption rate...
It's also my estimate that many drivers at .08 BAC or under the influence of marijuana are far superior drivers than some other drivers who are 100% sober.
So why isn't the line drawn based on driving ability or driving performance rather than mental state?
I can see some obvious reasons: you can measure BAC and it's pretty hard to objectively measure driving ability. But the point stands--BAC is not a measure of actual driving ability, rather a measure of personal impairment.
Edit: for dumbness.
> So why isn't the line drawn based on driving ability or driving performance rather than mental state?
Reckless/careless driving is a traffic violation that can result in loss of license.
I'm sure there's some segment of the population (A) that is so bad at reacting to dangerous situations that the people who are best at it (B) still outperform (A), despite (B) being under the influence.
You just shifted "driving" to "reacting to dangerous situations." The point holds.
Reckless / careless driving is a seldom-issued traffic violation, probably often in conjunction with DUI. It does not cover "the old man who can't pass a sobriety test when sober."
But just looking at risk of death isn't enough. I'm pro legislation, but I think downplaying risks does harm.
Because of my field of work, I am subject to drug testing and I like my job so I don't partake but it really doesn't matter to me if someone else wants to.
It doesn't make any sense to me to spend billions of dollars every year to try to stop people from obtaining and ingesting a plant.
Even if it were a deadly poison, it still wouldn't make sense to me.
For example, if drinking Hemlock infused tea were to became fashionable and people were dropping left, right and center from it, I would still think it's absurd to spend billions of dollars to stop consenting adults from doing so.
Since it makes no sense in that case, I have not heard a convincing argument for prohibition of a much less harmful (and often helpful) plant.
Let me help you out. Your hemlock hypothetical already exists. It's a Japanese fish called Fugu and the fatality rate from consumption thereof is 6.8%. I would never advocate for making Fugu illegal.
Nobody seems to care that alcohol is legal.
Honestly, though, I don't encounter any die-hard anti-marijuana people anymore. Most people don't care. I don't, either. My father says he doesn't, but says he'll vote against it anyway. Go figure.
Once your are sober, your memory functions pretty normally and isn't affected much by occasional use.
This is a very narrow study which shows a promising result but it's not saying "marijuana is completely safe now".
This is similar to the British health leader's announcement that MDMA was safer than alcohol, entirely based on how much likely someone was to die, as opposed to other potential negative effects like neurotoxicity.
I'm a support of full drug legalization, and agree that most drugs are far less harmful when taken properly than alcohol. It would be great to see less obtuse statistical analysis of risk.